SHANGHAI (Reuters) – A private jet linked to Tesla CEO Elon Musk landed in Beijing on Sunday, a flight tracking app showed. Musk is aiming to meet with senior Chinese officials in Beijing to discuss the introduction of full self-driving (FSD) software in China and seek approval to transfer data collected in the country abroad to develop algorithms for his to train autonomous driving technologies, one of the respondents said.
Tesla has been storing all data collected from its Chinese fleet in Shanghai since 2021 in accordance with the requirements of Chinese regulators and has not transferred any data back to the US.
The U.S. electric vehicle maker launched FSD, the most autonomous version of its Autopilot software, four years ago but has not yet made it available in China despite urging from customers.
In response to a query on social media platform X, Musk said Tesla may make FSD available to customers in China this month “very soon.”
Rival Chinese automakers like Xpeng are trying to gain an advantage over Tesla by introducing similar software.
Musk’s visit to China was not publicly announced and the people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The trip came just over a week after he canceled a planned visit to India to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, citing “very heavy Tesla commitments.”
The company said this month it would lay off 10% of its global workforce as it struggles with declining sales and an intensifying price war from Chinese electric vehicle brands.
LANDED IN BEIJING
According to Chinese flight tracking app Flight Manager, a Gulfstream private jet with tail number N272BG, registered to Falcon Landing, a company affiliated with SpaceX and Tesla, landed at Beijing Capital Airport at 06:03 GMT on Sunday.
The other jet registered under Falcon Landing is N628TS, Musk’s main jet, which he traveled on on his last trip to China nearly a year ago, when he met with Chinese government officials in Beijing and visited Tesla’s factory in Shanghai.
Tesla has sold more than 1.7 million cars in China since entering the market a decade ago, and its Shanghai factory is the largest in the world.
Musk’s visit coincides with the Beijing auto show, which opened last week and ends May 4. Tesla does not have a stand at China’s largest auto show and was last represented in 2021.
GM CEO Mary Barra made an unannounced visit to the trade show in the world’s largest auto market on Friday, according to two people familiar with her schedule. GM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Also on Friday, Grace Tao, Tesla’s vice president in charge of external relations in China, posted a comment on the social media account of state media outlet People’s Daily, arguing that autonomous driving technologies are the new growth engine for the electric vehicle industry.
Tao said in the article that Tesla is a leader in autonomous driving research and development with its “end-to-end neural network” technology and data collected from millions of cars on the road.
China’s complicated traffic conditions, with more pedestrians and cyclists than many other markets, offer more scenarios that are critical to training autonomous driving algorithms faster, according to industry experts.
Musk said last week that Tesla would introduce new, cheaper models based on its current EV platforms and production lines and offer a new “robotaxi” with self-driving technology. In a post on X this month, he said he would unveil the robotaxi on August 8th.
Tesla shares have fallen by nearly a third since the start of the year as concerns grow about the electric vehicle maker’s growth trajectory. Last week, Tesla reported its first decline in quarterly sales since 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic slowed production and deliveries.
(Reporting by Zhang Yan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Jamie Freed)